Women and Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century: Behn to Burney
 
      A man in petticoats? The sign of an advanced civilization? A prostituted muse? A respectable professional? From the Restoration in 1660 to the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, British women and men debated what to make of a woman who took up the pen. And suddenly such women were everywhere. Elite women had always circulated letters and poems in manuscript; others had published prayers and recipes. But with the re-opened playhouses in 1660, improved literacy, and a growing commercial print market, middle-class and labouring women were increasingly able to get poems printed, and even become professional authors. Over the century, hundreds of women published plays, treatises, poetry, essays, and fiction. This course focuses on ten of those writers.
      The course is divided into four modules. We begin with a playwright and a philosopher – Aphra Behn, considered the first professional woman writer, and Mary Astell, who debated ideas with the leading philosophers of the day and argued that women should avoid the marriage trap. The second module looks at women poets, from aristocrats to labouring-class writers. Key writers here are Anne Finch, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mary Leapor, and Anna Barbauld. The third module focuses on the Bluestocking movement–women who networked with other women and supportive male friends to advocate for female education and influence. Here students will have a chance to work with never-studied manuscript poems by the mystery poet Mrs. Wilmot. Module four will consider women’s leading role in the development of the novel, using Eliza Haywood and Frances Burney as examples.
     

Black, et al, ed. The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Volume 3 (The
   Restoration and the Eighteenth Century). 2nd ed. Broadview.

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